Heartbeat
by Helictite
Summary: It's like that feeling you get when you meet someone who totally understands you... which isn't always good. HPDM preslash, angst, sex, and more angst.


Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter; I just have fun making J.K. Rowling's characters have intercourse.

author's note- Harry/Draco, duh. Lemon-scented. DH compliant, kinda EWE. No Ginny, at least.

Summary: It's like that feeling you get when you meet someone who totally understands you, which isn't always good. HPDM preslash, angst, sex, and more angst.

Word Count: 3,361

DeviantArt 100 Themes Challenge: Number 60, Rejection.

* * *

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away-" Harry began his story, voice hushed in mock gravity.

His godson, bright-eyed and waiting, was tucked sleepily under the fluffy comfort of a snitch-patterned duvet, but wasted no time in correcting his godfather – "No, Harry! That's not the story I want tonight!"

Harry chuckled, shifting into a more comfortable position in his chair, before taking the bait and asking, "Alright then, what story _would_ you like?"

Teddy's brow furrowed in mock concentration for a moment, before he declared, "I want a new story. One you've never told me. It's got to have adventure," he mimed a sword battle, stubby arms flailing around in mock combat, "and misunderstandings, and it simply MUST have romance." His recent enamoration with the little girl down the street had coloured even his taste in bed-time stories.

He nodded solemnly, ignoring Harry's look of indignant befuddlement. After five minutes of silent thought, the brunette finally gave up, stumped. "I don't think I know any stories like that, baby." Teddy looked crestfallen, and Harry quickly tried to repair the boy's good mood, "But I'm sure I can think of something else for you, if you - "

"Harry, you know a story like that." A soft voice came from the door, shrouded in shadow. "In fact," Draco moved into the light, smiling gently but reproachfully, "you and I know it better than anyone."

It took only a few seconds for Harry to realize what his lover was talking about. "Oh, I remember one." He turned to Teddy again and watched the boy's hair change from a muted blonde to bubble-gum pink in his anxiety. "Would you like to hear it?"

The boy's nodding was so vehement he nearly rocked himself off the bed. Harry caught him just in time, tucked him back under his cover, pulled Draco into his lap, and began, "This is the story of how Draco and I came to be together. It's got adventure, duels, romance, and even a Dark Lord." Teddy's eyes grew round as Galleons with excitement.

"It all began many, many years ago, when Draco and I were in our first years working at the Ministry…"

* * *

Draco Malfoy strutted through the office with typical Slytherin snobbishness, the impressiveness of his swagger not quite disguising the thin coating of canary feathers currently plastered to every available inch of his body and clothing. A small girl followed close behind him, hanging onto corner of his robe with such force her knuckles were turning white. Her cowed expression could not entirely mask the guilty delight she felt, and her tiny pink mouth was pinched in a sour smile.

Members of each Department they stalked through stuck their heads over cubicle walls and out of office doors to see them pass, followed by a flood of flying memos and mail. Several memos had stuck themselves by accident in the same adhesive that attached the effervescent canary feathers to Draco's robe.

A rolling tide of whispers boiled around them, phrases like, 'that Malfoy-,' 'bird-brain,' and 'feathery git' interjected into the eerily still office air. He strode on unaffected, dragging the girl with single-minded determination. Reaching the lifts, he ushered her inside before mashing the 'door close' button with an angry finger.

When the thick doors slid shut, Draco leaned against the lift's wall in weary defeat and let his eyelids slip shut. The girl scuffed her feet on the floor, lowering her pretty eyes in embarrassment. "Are you mad at me, Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco sighed, before opening his eyes and looking down at her. "No, Anika, I'm not mad." She looked up at him hopefully, before he continued, "I am, however, very disappointed that you would misuse your magic that way, and in such a public place." The girl looked back down, her cheeks coloring.

The blonde man sighed, before relenting. "It's alright, I'll be fine. I just need a good _Scourgify _and I'll be back to normal in no time flat." It was his fault anyway, he mused, for letting her get so out of control. If he'd been watching her a little closer, instead of trying to fend off the crowd of reporters that had been following them all afternoon, the whole crisis could have been averted.

Anika was the youngest daughter of the American Minister of Magic, and was in Britain for a week on vacation with her father, who was on a business trip to visit Minister Shacklebolt. As Draco was Senior Undersecretary in the Department of International Magical Cooperation, the task of keeping the Ministry's 'important guest' busy for a day had fallen to him.

He had accepted his task earlier in the day with a grim sense of fear, mixed with mild hatred towards his boss. The girl had dragged him around for seven endless hours, from candy shop to ice-cream parlor, in an endless shopping spree around Diagon Alley. He'd been subjected to the work of a packhorse, carrying what seemed like hundreds of brightly-wrapped parcels for hours.

The disastrous trip had culminated in a very ugly accident with an exploding canary at the pet shop, which landed them back at the Ministry building with slightly dampened spirits. Anika had the sense to look bashful for a little while, but Draco knew she was enjoying the mess she'd made far more than he would have allowed his own daughter.

Draco mused for a while on the subject. His daughter, he decided, would be perfectly behaved. Her platinum-blonde hair would never be mussed, she would never speak out of turn, and her accidental magic would _never_ explode birds when she got angry at her babysitter – the lift dinged, disgorged the pair onto the lushly carpeted fifth floor, and clanked away sullenly.

As they wound their way through the maze of cubicles, Draco heard the faint chime of the Ministry's enchanted clock that signaled the end of his work day. With a sigh of relief, he towed Anika to the main offices, handed her over to his night-time replacement, and trudged back toward the lift.

He'd only gone a short distance when, seemingly from nowhere, a rushing Ministry employee - Department of Magical Transportation, judging by his robes – bustled around a corner and straight into him. Predictably, the two ricocheted off one another and onto the floor, followed by the papers that had been obscuring said employee's field of vision while he turned blind corners.

Muttering curses under his breath, Draco gathered fistfuls of papers in his shaking hands, straightened them into a respectable stack, and looked over to berate the meddlesome busybody that had just made an already shite day even worse-

And looked directly into the emerald eyes of the one and only Harry Potter.

* * *

Harry swallowed convulsively when Malfoy's caught his own, an inexplicable blush rising to stain his cheeks an unfortunate pomegranate. He scrambled to gather the few papers the blonde hadn't snagged, and quickly stood up, brushing the dust off his robes with a careless hand. He accepted the papers Malfoy proffered with a stuttered "Thanks" before the blonde gave him one last withering glare and stalked off into the recesses of the department floor.

The brunette's fingers tingled where Malfoy's hand had briefly touched his own, and he rubbed the affected digits absentmindedly on his robe as he watched the man's receding figure. He was… interesting.

* * *

Hermione chattered at Harry as she cooked, the sleeves of the robe she'd forgotten to take off trailing in the sauce that simmered gently on the stove. Harry slipped it off her shoulders gently, not interrupting her stream of updates as he slipped her arms from the sleeves and hung the garment on a hook outside the door.

He felt guilty for visiting so infrequently in the past few months; Hermione's thousand comments resulted only from a lack of chances to tell him how her life was going. She maneuvered around the kitchen with a grace that Harry instinctively knew he would never acquire, her projecting stomach just another reason to envy her dexterity.

According to the updates, she was now 8 months along in her relatively stress-free second pregnancy. He had known about her maternity leave from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for the past few weeks, but continued to put off visiting for various concocted reasons. He was glad to have finally accepted one of the Granger-Weasley dinner invitations; he had missed Hermione's company greatly.

He just couldn't stand the constant pressure from his friends and family about settling down. Every time he came over, Ron and Hermione ended up going through whole lists of blokes they worked with, trying to match their personalities and interests with Harry's own. Countless times they simply ignored his pleas and set him up on atrocious blind dates with awful men, and these days he simply refused to talk about the subject with them.

Ron finally stumbled in through the front door, pulled off his rain-sodden cloak, and threw himself into a chair at the kitchen table. Face pressed against the cool, soft wood, he raised his wand lazily and murmured "_Accio _Butterbeer." Two bottles flew out of the fridge and onto the table, before their lids twisted off and slid effortlessly into the garbage.

Harry grabbed one of the bottles with a grin, watching as Ron pulled his tired head from the table to grasp at the chilled glass container. The redhead took a long gulp, throat working fervently as the level of liquid in the bottle dropped to below half, before slamming it gracelessly onto the table.

Looking only marginally more awake than before, he belched, and then announced, "I got a promotion." Hermione immediately dropped the wooden spoon she was stirring with into the crackling pan of browning beef and threw her arms around her husband.

Harry slapped him on the back heartily. "Congrats, mate! So now you're…?"

"Secretary to the head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures." He sounded glum as he said it, and downed the last half of his bottle.

Hermione planted a quick kiss on his cheek before returning to the stove, and asked, "Why do you sound so upset? Isn't this promotion what you've been looking forward to for months?"

Ron scoffed. "Well yeah, but that's when I thought it'd just be another desk job, with maybe a little social stuff." He looked over at Harry with a sour expression twisting his mouth into an exhausted grimace. "Turns out I'm the busiest guy on the whole fourth floor, the Head included. Just today I had to bust up _two_ different skrewt-fighting rings." He pulled up his sleeve and showed Harry an impressive burn on his forearm. "Look what I got for my trouble!"

His best friend and wife both cooed in sympathy, listening to his tirade about 'the horrors of the actual working world' with private smiles. Hermione served supper, and afterward they stayed up until late in the evening trading work stories and memories. When Harry finally waved goodbye from the porch and walked to the sidewalk to apparate, the glowing hands of his watch told him it was some unholy hour of the morning. Ron yelled something that sounded like "Next time, bring a boyfriend!" before closing the front door on a frowning Savior.

Harry quickly apparated home, yanked off his clothing with single-minded determination, and collapsed onto his bed with a grateful sigh. As he drifted into sleep, his last thought was of Draco Malfoy, and the strange tingle in his fingers.

* * *

The next morning, due to a faulty alarm spell, Harry was running perilously late for work. He ran his fingers through his still-messy hair as he catapulted into the Floo, yelled "Ministry of Magic!" and swirled through the green flames to his destination. Shaking the ash from his robes, he began the short trek to the offices with a little more speed in his step than normal.

He had a meeting due to start at any minute, and it was imperative that he not be late. His boss had hinted at a big case for the month – well, big in terms of the Department of Magical Transportation – and he wanted to make a good showing for business' sake.

As a result of his tunnel-minded hurry, Harry did not notice the blonde man walking slightly more slowly in front of him. He crashed head-long into the man's broad shoulders, and fell backwards onto the floor. The blonde yelped and spun around, wand drawn, to confront his attacker.

For the second time in just two days, Harry found himself confronted with the startling silver eyes of the infamous Draco Malfoy.

* * *

Draco felt a shiver race up and down his spine as he stared at the wizarding world's golden boy. Potter's robes were rumpled, his hair messy, and his glasses askew. The man hopped off the floor with a mutter of "Bloody hell…" before dusting off his robes and looking up at Draco. "What the hell is your problem? That's twice in a row you've knocked me down!"

Draco looked at him pointedly. "I do believe that both times, the collision happened because _you_ were not paying attention to your surroundings. I cannot be blamed for acts I did not commit." He folded his arms over his chest and looked down at Potter. Really, the man should invest in a haircut and a dry-cleaning if he was to go out in public.

Potter sighed, resigned, and apologized quickly, "Sorry, Malfoy. I've got a meeting with the Minister in two minutes that I'll be late for if I don't hurry, and - " Draco cut him off.

"It seems we've got the same agenda. If you're able to walk without crashing into more innocent bystanders," he smirked at Potter's blush, "we can hurry to his office together and claim that the lifts were broken if caught sneaking in late." He started walking away, and smiled haughtily when he heard Potter's footsteps trailing along close behind him.

They walked quickly, in silence. The lift creaked and groaned, and as it rose to the Minister's floor, Potter tapped his ragged fingernails incessantly against the metal hand-rail, an annoyingly staccato tap-tap-tap that drove Draco insane.

"Could you, for one moment, pretend to be a polite member of society, and refrain from that ignoble and childish practice?" His sneer was evident through his voice, even when Potter was staring resolutely at the wall in front of him. The brunette looked angry for a moment, opened his mouth, and then seemed to think better of himself. Draco smiled in private victory as Potter crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the far wall.

The lift stopped at the Minister's floor and creaked open irritably. The two strode out, matching their paces in an unspoken race to the room where they were meeting. They reached the door at the same time, but Potter's hand made it to the handle first.

He swung the door open with a triumphant grin, but the victorious expression soon melted into one of bashful reluctance as he noticed the stony-eyed Minister Shacklebolt sitting across the table from where he entered. Seated next to him were two men in identical black suits, both wearing sunglasses, flanking a single, frail-looking older man.

The two men quickly calmed and settled down, taking chairs opposite the Minister and his guest. Draco hurried to smooth over their abrupt entrance with an apology. "My deepest apologies, Sir – the lift was stuck, and we simply could not get here one millisecond earlier." He smiled his trademark 'Malfoy Smile' and watched the Minister's face grown slightly less clouded.

"Fine, fine. Good morning, Gentlemen." He gestured to the man beside him. "This is Minister Tenshi Moto, of the Japanese Ministry. He and his family are taking a three-week, Muggle-style tour of Western Europe, and we require the help of you both."

Kingsley fixed them both with a stern look. "Potter, as our chosen emissary of the Department of Magical Transportation, you will be serving as transportation organizer and pseudo tour guide."

Potter's face went dead white. Draco would have laughed, if the Minister had not continued, "Malfoy, as you are the appointed liaison of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, you will naturally be accompanying Moto-san and his family on their tour, while aiding Potter as a tour guide."

Both men stared at the Minister with undisguised surprise. Potter was the first to stutter out, "M-Minister, surely you can't mean that Malfoy and I are to-" he swallowed convulsively, "go on a three week trip around Europe? Together?"

"Western Europe, my boy. Moto-san and his family would like to visit London, Paris, Madrid, that sort of thing. That should be too hard for you chaps, correct?" He evidently accepted their blank stares as assent, for he began nodding again and continued, "Alright. It's settled. You leave tomorrow morning at nine, be here with your bags. Potter, you'll need to organize cars for 16 family members, one for Moto-san alone, and one for your and Malfoy."

He turned to Moto-san and conversed in quick, hushed Japanese with him. Their interchange went on long enough for Draco and Potter to both come to their senses and adopt looks of utter outrage. When he turned back, he ignored their raised eyebrows and obviously impatient expressions.

"You'll need cars that can be expanded to hold beds and such, modified sleeping chambers. I'm assuming that is within your capabilities?" He looked at Potter pointedly, who nodded. The Minister smiled his approval and cut him off when he began protesting.

"Malfoy, you'll be expected to organize meals and locations for the duration of the vacation, as well as keep our guests entertained. Is that within your abilities?" Draco nodded mutely, intent on not making a fool of himself like the still-protesting Potter.

The Minister smiled. "Good. We've reached an agreement. See you two in the morning, 9a.m. sharp!" The chairs that held both indignantly fuming men quickly slid out the open office door, deposited Draco and Potter in the hall, and flew back inside. The door closed too quickly for either man to go in and argue their case.

Draco looked down at Potter, sneered, and walked away. If he was going to have to endure three weeks sleeping in the same car as the loutish brute, he would need all night to prepare the necessary travel bags.

* * *

Harry stared open-mouthed after Malfoy as the blonde made his dramatic exit. His brain refused to process the last ten minutes entirely.

Well, shit.

* * *

a/n- R&R, please? Also, I need good ideas of places in Europe to visit xD


End file.
